The Indian Mutiny, Part II: The Siege of Delhi
Some of the fiercest fighting of the Indian Mutiny took place in and around the ancient capital of the Moguls, where the last Mogul sovereign exercised a shadowy power until 1857. This is the second of three articles by Jon Manchip White on the origins and development of the nineteenth-century Indian Revolt against British Rule.
Delhi in 1857 was the capital of Gazi-ud-din Bahadur Shah, King of Delhi, last of the Mogul Emperors. After Lord Lake had captured the city from the French-trained Mahrattas in 1803, he discovered Muhammad Shah imprisoned in a dark little room. The British drove out his conquerors and reinstated him on his throne; and during the half-century that followed the Mogul Emperors were British pensioners, residing in the rose-red palace of Shah Jehan on condition that they allowed their dominions to be administered by the Europeans.
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